


Swearing a Red, White, and Blue Streak

by zorilleerrant



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 14:15:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7390486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zorilleerrant/pseuds/zorilleerrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some reason, people seem to think Steve doesn't know any bad words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swearing a Red, White, and Blue Streak

“Fuck this,” come the words Clint never expected to hear, from lower down in the branches, and he has to struggle not to fall off his perch.

“Steve?” Clint asks, softly, trying not to call attention to the tree full of Avengers.

“Oh, sorry,” Steve says, “I didn’t mean, uh, does that sort of thing bother you?”

Clint cocks his head reflexively when he answers, even though he isn’t looking at Steve and he’s pretty sure Steve isn’t looking at him. “What sort of thing?”

“The language,” Steve says, breathing out a disappointed sigh. “Sorry.”

“Language?” Clint says. “I mean, wow, you just said ‘fuck’, and why’d you say that? But, um, I don’t exactly have the politest mouth around.”

“Well, actually, I’m pretty sure I said ‘fuck this’,” Steve tells him, “but I didn’t mean to offend you, and I’m sorry if I did.”

“Fuck that,” Clint says, agreeably. “So what were you fucking this?”

Steve chuckles. “I mean, there’s no way the problem isn’t solved or mostly solved by now, and I can’t even hear fighting. We picked the wrongest vantage point.”

“Seemed likely at the time,” Clint argues.

“This shit is not worth my morning,” Steve says. “I was supposed to finally get to sleep the fuck in.”

Clint finally does look down. “I thought you didn’t sleep?”

“I don’t, all that much, but Saturdays are sleepy days, you know, I was looking forward to just lazing around, maybe watching some cartoons,” Steve says. “Now that’s shot to hell.”

“Should’ve invited me,” Clint says, “I’d watch cartoons with you. Then we could be all disappointed about our lack of animated buffoonery together.”

“Life’s a bitch,” Steve says, just as their radios crackle back to life.

After a fairly long pause, Tony says, “Cap?”

“Iron Man?” Steve says, all strict professionalism again.

“I was going to say I’m swinging by to get you, because Widow and Thor are mopping up here, but,” Tony clears his throat, “did I just hear you swearing at Hawkeye?”

“Who, me?” Steve asks, “well, gee, Tony, he can be a little hard to get along with, but that’s no call for coarse language! Hawkeye’s a pretty swell guy, and no foolin’.”

Clint just knows he’s going to get it later for going off comms again, but it doesn’t quite muffle him laughing his ass off enough just sticking his face in the crook of his arm, and _damn_.

 

“Fucking bullshit. Fucking bullshit is what it is,” Steve says.

Clint nods. “Truer words never spoken.”

“Indeed, my friends, it is truly bullshit of the highest caliber,” Thor agrees.

The other two slowly turn their heads to him, Steve’s eyes widening as he realizes what he just said, and Clint dropping his face into his hands.

“Say, Thor,” Steve says.

Thor beams at him.

Steve clears his throat. “Now, ‘bullshit’ is not actually a word we say in polite company, I mean, I just want to be clear here, if a reporter –”

“Not to fear,” Thor booms, “I understand the nuances of the Midgardian tongues. I find it to be much like a puzzle, deciphering which words fit within which context.”

Steve’s mouth gapes open.

“I am very good at puzzles,” Thor adds.

“Right, of course,” Steve agrees.

Clint snickers.

“Correct me if my information comes from less than worthy sources, but the event which is bullshit is the fact that we were denied a quest,” Thor says.

“Uh, yeah,” Clint says, “a mission that sounded really fucking cool, which I totally would’ve been allowed to go on if I hadn’t hooked up with you losers.”

“It’s true,” Steve says, to Thor, offering up Clint’s box of moping cookies, “Clint used to go on way better missions before the Avengers screwed everything up, the assholes.”

“Thank you!” Clint says, snagging his cookies back, but not before Thor catches a few.

Thor nods sagely. “It would have been a most engaging pastime.”

“The point is, the dumb fucks that run our beautiful country think this would be bad international relations,” Steve concludes. “Or some bullshit.”

“Ah, yes,” Thor agrees. “Politics are not a game for the faint of heart in any realm.”

“America deserves better,” Steve says.

“Fucking. Bullshit,” Clint reiterates, mouth full of cookies.

“I was given to understand that you did not partake of certain domains within your native tongue,” Thor says, to Steve. “It was intimated to be unworthy of a warrior of your caliber.”

“Aw, shit,” Steve says, “I’m pretty sure warriors of any caliber are more likely, actually.”

“That’s true,” Clint agrees, “you should visit SHIELD.”

“I will take this under advisement,” Thor says, with a decisive nod. “As soon as the bullshit is resolved. But, Captain, I must commend you on your turn of phrase.”

“Uh, what?” Clint says. Steve raises an eyebrow.

“I worried your passion in battle might be hampered by a chained, too civil tongue,” Thor mutters. Morosely.

“Thor,” Tony scolds, plopping himself down next to the rest of them, “are you making fun of Cap for not knowing any naughty words?”

“Assuredly not, Man of Iron,” Thor says. Then grins. “In the words of Lady Darcy, the Captain’s manner of speech is, in fact, most bitching.”

 

“Fucker owes me twenty bucks,” Steve concludes, and claps a hand over his mouth.

“Mm,” Bruce agrees, staring into his microscope.

“Uh, the point is,” Steve rushes to add, “I know I said I’d help you out, and I’m sorry I’m late, and is there anything I can still do?”

“Yeah,” Bruce says, waving a vague hand at an indistinguishable mass of lab equipment, “you can get me the – did you just swear?”

“Uh, no?” Steve says, and guiltily adds, “with the exception of maybe ‘fucker’, but that’s all and only once.”

“Huh,” Bruce says. “I was under the impression, and, believe me, there were a lot of people cultivating this impression, that Captain America just Did Not Swear.”

“ _Captain America_ doesn’t swear.” Steve heaves an exasperated sigh. “Steve Rogers swears all the goddamn time.”

“Oh, uh, that makes sense, actually,” Bruce says, and goes back to preparing a set of slides with that thing he wanted Steve to hand him (cover slips).

“Am I late?” Clint asks, dropping out of the ceiling.

“Yes,” Bruce says, agreeable, “but you can clean out the pipettes.”

Clint grumbles, shakes his head, and says cheerily to Bruce, “guess what?”

“What?” asks Bruce, frowning and adjusting the magnification.

“If it’s about my foul mouth, he noticed,” Steve says.

“Aw,” Clint says, “I am late.”

“Friends!” Thor says, “I have come to help you with your grand endeavor!”

“Oh,” Bruce says, with a thoughtful frown. “You can just, you can sit over there.”

“We will use words of science, and not words of ill repute!” Thor adds. “I am learning many of the first from Lady Jane. And many more of the second from Lady Darcy.”

“Well, no, really,” Bruce says, “words of, ha, ill repute. Those are fine. It’s a laboratory, guys, not something I’m about to have peer reviewed.”

Thor turns to stare at Steve. “You indicated that we should take heed of the words we chose to speak near him.”

“Um, yeah,” Steve says. “Well. I just thought.”

“No matter,” Thor says, “we shall celebrate with the profane, then! Motherfucker!”

“Yeah, okay, that seems, okay,” Bruce says.

“Wait, what did he mean be careful what you said to me?” Bruce says.

“Oh,” Steve mutters, shuffling. “We thought, you know, calm atmosphere. Didn’t want to throw a shit fit and bring out the other guy.”

“He means,” Clint says, shaking his head at Bruce, “that you seemed all mild-mannered and gentle of disposition and he didn’t want to make you catch the vapors.”

“Sensitive,” Steve says, “I said sensitive.”

“I’m not that sensitive,” Bruce says, shaking his head. He pulls off his gloves just so he can push his labcoat aside and tuck his hands in pockets. “Look: Damn. Piss. Dildo.”

“Dildo’s not an expletive,” Steve informs him.

“Piss isn’t really, either,” Clint says.

“On the other hand,” Thor defends Bruce, “his first choice was a damned fine curse.”

Bruce groans. “What do you want me to say, cunt? Whore? Bitch?”

“I’m sensing a theme, here,” Clint says.

“Yeah, that’s,” Steve says, “let’s steer the conversation away from that.”

“A noble effort,” Thor says, “may I suggest ‘fuck’?”

“Fuck,” Bruce says, “fuck fuckity fuck fuck fucker.”

“Are we trying to make Cap blush again?” Tony calls from the hallway, then pokes his head in. “Pantyhose. Bustier. Thong.”

Steve raises an eyebrow.

“Curses,” Tony says, as he walks out, “he’s become immune to my charms.”

“Well, that was weird,” Clint says.

Bruce laughs a little, mostly to himself, and calls out, “fuckity-bye.”

 

“– fucking Goofy!” Steve says, to chortles from not only Thor, Clint, and Bruce, but also their waiter (polite) and the couple of kids at the next booth over (possibly intoxicated).

Natasha doesn’t laugh at all.

“Oh, excuse me!” Steve says, turning bright red and pulling out a chair for her.

Natasha scowls at it. Now she has to sit in it, and not the lovely inviting space on the plush seat that she just could’ve squeezed into if she jammed Clint against the corner.

To be fair, Clint’s laughing too hard to really have budged, anyway.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Natasha says.

Clint shakes his head. “Not that. It’s that, you know, protecting your virtue.”

“Ah,” Natasha says.

“He’s right,” Steve agrees, with a solemn nod, “that’s no talk to be having in front of a lady. I’ll watch my mouth. I’m sorry.”

“Steve, I don’t think,” Bruce begins.

Thor interrupts him. “Nay, let Fair Widow speak on her own behalf.”

“Why, thank you, Thor,” Natasha says, and sighs. “Well, Steve, I don’t think you know this, but when I was growing up, there was this, well, this old woman.

“I shouldn’t say old. Of course, I was only a very young child, and everyone seemed old to me, then. She was a sort of nanny. But she was pregnant herself, with her first children – triplets, and she looked it – so she must have been much younger than I remember her.

“I see her with gray hair and wrinkles, but, in reality, I think that was another of the women who looked after us, more an instructor than a nanny. She may have been quite young, even, hardly more than a girl herself. But it was a difficult pregnancy, and she needed money.

“She looked after us, just the youngest ones. She wasn’t the best worker. Oh, she was kind, and cared for us, and made sure we ate healthy, or as healthy as we could, anyway. But she also stole. Well, with three babies on the way, she had to prepare.”

“Gosh,” Steve says. “I can’t imagine.”

Natasha gives him a warm smile. “Well, she was mixed up with the wrong crowd, obviously, and even though she wasn’t doing much more than making soup and telling bedtime stories, someone got it in their head to shoot her. We never caught whoever it was.”

Steve’s eyes widen.

“But she survived. A miracle, most everyone said, and I certainly believed that, at the time, although now I wonder if the serum or some other marvel of science was involved. Shot three times, point blank, in the belly, and she survived.

“And all three babies, too. Born happy and healthy right on time, almost a month and a half later. They didn’t let her stop working, of course, and I was even there with her when her water broke, but she had her children, and soon we had some little playmates, two girls and a boy, and many of us took to helping her care for them.

“She was grateful for our help. She barely had family, and even that far away, and their father had been killed shortly before she came to us. She thought she was safe from the man who had shot her, and, true, he never returned.

“But, instead, one of her daughters began to experience severe pain in her abdomen. It was early, but most of the doctors thought she was simply hitting puberty. After some time, though, it didn’t subside, and she went for a second, then third opinion, scraping together what luxuries and favors she could to offer to the best she could find. We helped her, when we could avoid getting caught.

“A kidney stone, one doctor finally said, and they waited for it to pass, but it wasn’t. It was the bullet she thought could never hurt her daughter again. It had somehow made its way into her bladder, somehow been slowly ejected over the course of months.

“Her second daughter, the timing was right, but she was prepared, this time. And she demanded more forcefully to talk to someone else. She knew this was not a simple issue of menarche, or even pregnancy, but that night coming back to haunt her children.

“And they waited again. Her daughter was in agony, but at least this time, they knew what to do, knew how to bear it. The sisters held hands and cried together, waiting.

“She waited for her son to have the same complaint, but for years he said nothing, and she thought she was free. That, perhaps, one child had been spared punishment for her folly.

“He came to her, one night. In tears. This was years later, and I was already a tutor in my own right, teaching a new generation of children in so many arts, but I caught him, sobbing into his mother’s shirt.”

Natasha shakes her head. “And she said, ‘it’s alright. It will be painful, but the bullet will be out soon enough.’”

Natasha takes a deep breath. “And he said to her, ‘it already came out! I was jacking off and I shot Janie!’”

Steve chokes on his coffee.

“And that is why one should not underestimate the lovely Widow,” Thor says.

“This,” Clint says, “this is why no one’s ever clear what’s real and what’s bullshit.”

“That was a really heartwarming story, right up until the end there,” Bruce adds.

“I agree, made me cry,” Tony says.

Steve glares at him. “You weren’t even here for literally any of it, Tony.”

Tony tosses his phone from hand to hand. “How do you know?”

Steve gives him a look.

“Ooh, he’s mad now,” Tony says, to the table in general. “A thousand says I can push it far enough to get him to say a bad word.”

“What counts as bad?” Clint asks.

“Not taking that bet,” Bruce says.

“I believe you incapable, Man of Iron, my sincerest apologies,” Thor rumbles.

“Tony,” Natasha says, “are you making fun of your teammate?”

“Aw, golly, I’m not that mad, Tony,” Steve says, “I know you’re just funnin’.”

“Yep, that’s me, funning all the way,” Tony says.

Natasha shakes her head at him and mutters, “I cannot believe this shit.”

 

“Fuck!” Steve says, “motherfucking cocksucking cuntlicking shitting son of a bitch goddamn fucking little bastard piece of shit!”

Tony goes white in the face and stares. “Uh. Steve? Did something happen?”

Steve looks up. “Spilled coffee on myself.”


End file.
